


Through the clouds

by judithandronicus



Series: Up We Go [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alcoholic Dean Winchester, Angst with a Happy Ending, Coda, Grieving Dean Winchester, M/M, Post-Episode: s15e18 Despair, Suicidal Dean Winchester, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-10
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:27:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27435808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/judithandronicus/pseuds/judithandronicus
Summary: It certainly ain’t the first hallucination he’s ever had, but damn if this one don’t hurt like a son of a bitch. The rumble of his voice; the familiar scent of ozone and something like trees high up in the Rockies; the sound, some weird-ass combination of wings flapping and swish of that stupid goddamn coat.It’s like every goddamn synapse is in on it this time, enveloping him in the sense memory of all he’s lost.Dean’s brain needs to choke on a whole bag of dicks for this oneAngsty, alcohol-filled coda to 15.8, with a happy/hopeful ending. For the explicit continuation, readInto the Light.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Series: Up We Go [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2010523
Comments: 28
Kudos: 170





	Through the clouds

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Up We Go," Imaginary Future.
> 
> This one is for my lovelies, unkindravens, NeelyO, and ahurston.

“Dean?” Sam’s voice echoes through the bunker. He knows by now not to expect an answer, but force of habit and all. It’s not the first time Dean’s lost himself in a bottle, not by a long shot. Sam stopped counting the times his brother let the “functioning” part of “high-functioning alcoholic” fall by the wayside. Sometime between the second time Cas died and when the angel finally came back from Purgatory, he realized it wasn’t worth the effort. He just gave Dean a wide berth and made sure to hide his keys. He’d come back from the brink; he always did.

Right?

He’d be okay eventually. Wouldn’t he?

Sam calls out again, more so as a warning for Dean than anything else. He stops outside the door and listens for a few beats, then raps his knuckles against the steel, oblivious to how the sound reverberating inside the room made Dean cringe and tremble.

Because Sam doesn’t—he just _couldn’t_ —know how much it hurts. How the thump of it takes Dean back, back to when everything collapsed around him. That one moment. Cas’ moment of happiness. That look in his angel’s blue eyes, how free and relaxed and _happy_ he was, even as the Empty swallowed him whole.

That bastard _._ That selfish, feathery _bastard._ Cas’ got his moment of happiness, and he left Dean. He said _that_ and then left, left Dean with absolutely fucking _nothing,_ and it wasn’t fair. Everyone always left Dean, and how the fuck could Cas _say_ those things and then leave and expect Dean to do _anything_? How could he just _leave_ like that?

Dean sprawls across the floor to pick up the tumbler where he’d left it last. He lies there for a moment, elbow on the cold cement, head propped against his hand, and just stares into the empty glass, willing it to fill. Willing the emptiness to go away.

Nothing.

Dean rolls to his side, presses himself up to slouch against the wall, and throws the tumbler into the darkness, huffing out a grim laugh at the sound of it shattering against…something. Who the fuck knows what. Who cares, anyway?

Not like there’s anyone or anything left to save now.

 _Where’s that bottle?_ He scans the dungeon, grunting in a shitty excuse for victory when he spots what’s left of his last fifth of Jack on a bookcase in the corner of the room.

Dean pushes himself up onto his hands and knees, and then puts a shaky foot against the floor in an abortive attempt to stand.

_Nope, that ain’t happening._

Dean reminds himself to breathe. In, then back out.

_Eye on the prize._

His focus zeroes in on the too-thin line of amber in the bottle. He drags himself across the room, hands and knees getting even grimier from decades of dust. When he finally reaches his destination, Dean grabs hold of the shelves and clambers up onto his feet, careless of the mess as he sends dusty old tomes crashing to the floor around his feet. _You can do this,_ he berates himself as he wills his awkward limbs to settle, his hands to stop shaking. He grips the glass tight and gives the cap a firm twist. _Victory._ throws the cap over his shoulder and brings the bottle to his lips. It’s not like he was gonna need the top anyway; there ain’t enough left to save. There never is.

Dean groans in relief as the amber liquid burns its way down his throat.

“Dean?” Sam pauses again, listening for the sound of…well, of anything from inside the room. Hearing nothing, he turns the knob and pushes, the metal groaning as it moves. “You still in here?”

“Leemealone, Sammy.”

Sam moves quietly through the dark stacks, headed in the general direction of Dean’s broken voice. He stops in his tracks at the first crunch of glass under his feet, squats down to see what he’s just stepped on. In the dim, blue-tinged light cast from his phone, Sam can barely make out the shattered remains of a whiskey glass. Dry. No signs of blood. Probably tossed it when he realized it was empty. Sam makes a mental note to come back with a broom and dustpan, then continues deeper into the dungeon. 

“I brought you something to eat,” he says, in what he hopes is a soothing tone of voice. 

“Go ‘way, ‘m not hungry.”

“It’s been days, Dean. You need to…to at least eat something.” Sam can’t say it’s a surprise, really, when the bottle hurtles toward him. Acting on sheer instinct, he ducks out of the way as the mostly empty Jack Daniels bottle flies past his face and smashes against the wall. He watches, mutely, as it explodes into shards, his jaw clenched and lips pursed tight.

“Dammit, Dean.” Sam grumbles beneath his breath, willing the tension in his face to dissolve enough to unclench his teeth. He turns toward the general vicinity from where the projectile had been launched, and stomps his way to the trembling wreck of a man knotted up against the wall, his head tucked into where his arms rests on his knees.

“You gotta snap out of this. We—” the flinch at the word is unmistakable. Sam gulps and starts again, “I mean _I_ need you, Dean. We got a world to save, man. Can’t do it without you.”

Slowly, Dean lifts his head, giving Sam his first clear look at his brother’s face in what feels like forever: his face pale, scruffy with what’s threatening to become a full-blown beard. Eyes hollowed out from the dark circles beneath them, the green of his irises standing out all the more against the broken capillaries webbed across the whites, crusts of dried tears caught in his lashes. He looks…tired, broken. His eyes, dull and unfocused, twitch as Dean struggles to hold his head upright even as he squeezes his arms tighter around his bent knees.

“Sammy?” he croaks, small and uncertain.

Small, Sam realizes. Dean looks, _sounds_ …small, broken in a way even Sam doesn’t know how to handle. This is so much worse than all those times before.

“You need to eat, Dean.” Sam crouches so that he can look Dean in the eye, but that just makes his stubborn big brother turn away. “C’mon, man,” he starts again, nudging Dean’s hands with the Biggerson’s bag. “I’m not gonna just stand back and watch you drink yourself to death. It’s a bacon cheeseburger. Better eat before it gets even colder.”

They stay like that, Sam crouched, all tentative and protective in front of Dean’s huddled form, the grease-stained paper bag an unclaimed offering between them. 

“Look man, I get it. I miss him, too. But we got things to do. So you need to decide. Are you gonna pull your shit together and talk about it now, or just push it all down to ignore the way you always do?”

Dean jerks his head up at that and stares at Sam. For a second, he thinks he sees Dean’s lower lip quiver, and then…then, nothing. Just a blank mask, dazed and hollow-eyed and lost, like he’s not even _seeing_ Sam, just looking _through_ him into the distance.

“Just go, Sammy,” Dean mumbles to that blank middle-distance, “just go.”

Sam takes a breath, and shakes his head. There’sno getting through to him like this. He puts the bag down next to Dean’s hip, and reaches out to place his hand on Dean’s shoulder. “At least eat, okay?” Sam pleads, before rising to his feet. “I’ll check on you in a bit.”

When he reaches the door, Sam glances back over his shoulder one last time, and tries not to crumble at what he sees.

Dean sits, unmoving and inconsolable, looking blankly toward a wall like it’s his only hope for salvation.

“Dean.”

It certainly ain’t the first hallucination he’s ever had, but damn if this one don’t hurt like a son of a bitch.

The rumble of his voice; the familiar scent of ozone and something like trees high up in the Rockies; the sound, some weird-ass combination of wings flapping and swish of that stupid goddamn coat.

It’s like every goddamn synapse is in on it this time, enveloping him in the sense memory of all he’s lost.

Dean’s brain needs to choke on a whole bag of dicks for this one.

“Cas, Cas—“ he cries out, his voice gravelly and hoarse, rusty like the hinge on a gate nobody’s opened in years. Dean can’t remember the last time he talked to another person. Has it been hours or days since Sammy was here?

In his head, Dean’s been screaming, calling out for Cas, begging him to come back, praying for more time, a chance to…to, well, _respond_. To do something. _Anything._

“God _dammit,_ Cas!” Dean crosses his right arm over his chest, rests his hand on his shoulder, the stain on his coat a pale memory of the brand Cas once left on his flesh. “Cas Cas Cas,” he chants, near-mindless, as he curls his fingers. He squeezes until he feels his nails catch on the fabric of his coat. _That’s good_ , Dean tells himself. He squeezes tighter, feels the pinch of his fingernails digging in deeper, _wants_ to feel the sting of it, the pain.

Because that’s what he gets, isn’t it? Pain.

It’s definitely what he deserves.

Dean closes his eyes, focusing all his attention on those five little prickles of pain. A reminder of what, _who_ , he’s lost. Of all the people he couldn’t save. Of _him,_ and how he’ll never get the chance to tell him…

He doesn’t realize he’s doing it until something stops him. The rhythmic thunk thunk thunk of his head against the cinder block wall, the dull ache blooming across the back of his skull. The itch of the rough-edged block tugging at the overgrown hair above his neck, the scrape of it dragging against his scalp like the beginnings of road rash. Dean doesn’t know how long he’s been banging his head against the wall like that, not until he’s forcibly stopped.

“Dean _._ ”

The sound of his name echoes inside his head, foreign, distant. The low grumble of it makes every part of his body ache, desperate for it, longing for something he’ll never have again. Something he didn’t know he ever had in the first place.

_Hello, Dean. Hello, Dean. Hello, Dean._

Dean’s goddamn brain is _throbbing_ , as if it it’s trying to break free from its bony cage. It’s pounding against the insides of his skull, to the rhythm of his frantic heartbeat, and Dean wants to die. Is ready for it, even. It couldn’t be worse than this. His face is wet again, some godawful combination of tears and snot and hell, probably even drool, but it doesn’t matter. Why should it? He’s gone and isn’t coming back and so what if Dean’s a crying, slobbering, snotted up mess until he can manage to drown himself in a bottle?

“Cas Cas Cas…” he mumbles, singing out the name like a prayer. A useless goddamned god-forsaken prayer because Cas is gone, and all that’s left of him are these stupid goddamn memories. Hallucinations. Visions. What the fuck ever they are, it’s a pale, lonely imitation of what he ain’t ever gonna have.

Dean slumps down, ready to pass out on the cold concrete. Again. Forever. Just one more time. Maybe, if he’s lucky, this’ll be the last. 

“Cas.”

It doesn’t happen.

Of course it doesn’t happen. Why should Dean Winchester have the luxury of oblivion _now_ , when he wants it?

“Dean.”

There’s a warmth on his shoulder, on _that_ shoulder, and it hurts. It hurts to feel…to feel _anything,_ really, but especially there. He’d be pissed at Sam if he had enough energy left to feel anything but despair. Not there, Sammy. _Never_ there.

“Dean?”

It ain’t going away, that heat of the contact. It prickles underneath his skin, like his cells are waking up, remembering the brand, the sear of when Cas gripped him tight and raised him from Perdition. It’s gone now, Dean knows that, _hates_ that it’s gone, but every goddamn molecule of his being remembers it.

“ _Dean._ ”

It hurts too much.

“Go away, Sammy.”

The grip on his shoulder tightens, Dean is vaguely aware of that, and he’d coldcock that motherfuckin’ moose if he could remember how to move his other arm.

Somehow the sharp pinch of fingernails makes its way through all the layers of shirts and coat, and the sting of it sends a spark straight to Dean’s spine. Only for a moment, though, and then it’s gone, _of course_ it’s gone, because it isn’t real. Nothing’s real and nothing matters and Dean really needs another drink or three. His brain is a hazy fog of booze and grief and regret and fuck Sam for pulling him into consciousness like that.

The heat is back on his shoulder, squeezing gently, a soft and almost rhythmic palpation, and suddenly there’s another spot of heat pressed against the side of his face, and that hint of ozone and aspen trees in the stagnant air of the dungeon and this is definitely the worst hallucination his fucked up brain has thrown at him to date.

“Dean, I need you to look at me,” that familiar voice grumbles, and Dean can feel the fresh tears spilling down his cheeks, over layers of dried up tracks of the ones he’s already spilled.

“Please, don’t,” Dean manages to croak, “I can’t take it. Please. _Please—_ ” He doesn’t know what he’s pleading for, or who he hopes will answer, for that matter, but it’s too much and it’s too intense and he has to at least _try_. “Please.”

“Dean Winchester, open your eyes.”

“I’m here.” Impossibly soft lips kiss the words into Dean’s forehead, over and over. Strong hands cup his head, broad palms pressing from the hinges of his jaw along both sides of his head, nimble fingers carding through the overgrown mess of hair at the base of his skull. “I promise you, I’m here and I’m real.”

It has to be a dream, a hallucination, a… _fuck_ , something. It can’t be real, the heat of Cas’ breath against his sweat-sticky skin, the pliant, gentle press of lips against him. Dean’s certain he hasn’t died, much as he’s longed for it, because this sure as shit ain’t the pit. Unless.

Unless…

What if this _is_ his torment? The having…only _not_ , because it’s not real, and Dean _knows_ it’s not real. To know the illusion, even as he’s getting the only thing he could ever want again for all of goddamn eternity.

“You’re not real, man. Don’t do this me,” he croaks, “p-please.” He chokes on his words, barely able to push the last one out before he’s sobbing again, his whole body is wracked anew with grief, shivering and trembling against the dank, cold of the floor, of where his back is pushed up to the unforgiving wall. He knocks his head back against the wall again, as hard as he can manage, relieved by the the smack of bone against unyielding concrete, the jolt of pain that explodes inside his skull, sending shockwaves out to the rest of him. A bitter, metallic taste that floods his mouth when his teeth clamp involuntarily onto the tip of his tongue, and Dean welcomes it. Wants to choke on it. Anything to distract from the torment of not-having. An eternity of it. Of knowing he could’ve had it and never took the chance.

“You stubborn, impossible man, please look at me.” It’s sharper this time, rough and harsh and demanding. There’s a dissonance to it. To the hand gripping his hair, forcing Dean’s head back, and to the harsh words, spoken soft and pleading. His scalp is alight with it, thousands of tiny pinpricks traveling from the harsh tug of that powerful hand through every nerve in his goddamn body.

“Please, Cas,” Dean rasps, his eyes squeezed tight as he feels another huge swell of grief bubbling up from his chest.

“Dean, you assbutt, open your shitting eyes.” It’s a demand now, accompanied by another sharp tug on his hair. Overwhelmed, Dean’s breath stutters. The prickles of pain, the growl of Castiel’s voice, the absolute fucking ridiculous attempt to cuss.

_Good things do happen, Dean._

“C-cas?” At some point during its travels, that well of grief met up with a bubble of hope, and Dean is goddamn terrified by the enormity of it when he finally wills himself to open his damn eyes.

Please, Cas. _Please._

“Hello, Dean.”

Darling, don't you know it  
Know that nothing can stop us now  
Darkness lasts a moment  
We will make it through the clouds.

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a Cas comes back and they fuck it out PWP. Oops.


End file.
